


Love of my Life, Gone Forever

by seabean



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Cullen Feels, F/M, post-haven
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-26
Updated: 2017-04-26
Packaged: 2018-10-24 10:24:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10739784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seabean/pseuds/seabean
Summary: Cullen realizes he has fallen in love with the Herald of Andraste, only to lose her after the fall of Haven.A little exploration of romanced!Cullen's thoughts and feelings after the fall of Haven, before the Inquisitor stumbles upon the camp and everyone realizes she survived.





	Love of my Life, Gone Forever

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first published fic on ao3 and my first fic for the Dragon Age fandom, so I'm taking a big leap here! Just a quick little drabble to get the writing juices flowing and let out my angsty Cullen feels. Feedback is much appreciated, and I hope you enjoy!
> 
> (and yes, the title is from a Front Bottoms song :P)

He had let her stay.

That’s all Cullen can think of during the long days of trekking through the snow with tired feet and the few supplies they could salvage carried on their backs.

In the fear and the chaos of Corypheus’s attack, nobody had been thinking in total clarity but in hindsight leaving Evelyn behind was their only real option at survival. It was her choice, and she made it knowing the risks. But despite it all, Cullen can’t stop fixating on the “ifs,” those ridiculous, desperate dreams where she is still with him.

At the very least, he should have said something.

A hand on his shoulder startled him out of thought. Cassandra was looking at him in concern, her tired eyes searching his face. “I know this is hard for you,” she said softly, “because you love her. But she’s strong, Cullen. She’ll make it.” Before Cullen could respond, she released his shoulder and trudged on ahead.

“Because you love her…” The words echoed around in his skull. He had thought about Evelyn quite often, and her beauty was hard to ignore, but love? The feeling had never really occurred to him. It would, however, explain the constant urge to comfort her, to rub her weary shoulders after a battle, the longing in his chest now that she was gone and the way he missed her laugh and mischievous smile.

It took losing her for the realization to occur, and it hit him like a charging druffalo. He loved her. He loved her, and now she was gone because he had let her go. Cullen had to drag his mind back to the present, away from the burning behind his eyes and the knot in his throat. Instead he focused on the winter wind whipping his face and the flurries of snow cluttering on his eyelashes. He took a deep breath, blinked slowly, and continued on. There was nowhere to go but forward. Oh, Maker, please let her be safe.

...

Inquisition scouts had been searching the mountains daily, but after three days since the fall of Haven it seemed fruitless. As much as Lady Trevelyan had endured, there were limits to the amount of cold a body could handle before it succumbed to the winter chill. The Frostback Mountains were ruthless, and knew nothing of Heralds and Heroes. By all logic, she should be dead by now, if she had even made it out of Haven alive to begin with.

On the night of that third day, Cullen joined Cassandra and Solas on a final sweep of the mountains. They had been moving slowly in the hopes that if she had survived, the Herald would be able to catch up. Unfortunately, supplies were running low and they had to move out of the mountain range soon if there was any chance of survival. Besides, at this point there was little hope the Herald had survived on her own for this long.

Cassandra and Solas walked beside Cullen in silence, all of them too cold and tired to engage in idle talk. He knew they wanted to ask him how he was doing, he could see it in the way they glanced at him every few minutes as if to be sure he was still standing. He was fine, really. He had to be.

The wind began to pick up speed, swirling around them ferociously, screaming and howling like a tortured soul. “We should turn back,” he heard Cassandra shouting over the wind.

“I am inclined to agree with the Seeker, Commander,” Solas added when Cullen failed to respond.

Maybe it was the wind, or the self-induced lack of sleep to avoid the dreams, but he swore he saw something out there in the storm. He squinted through the blizzard, just barely making out a blurry form, walking towards them slowly. Warmth built in his chest, the feeling of a small, desperate hope. It could easily be a bear or some other beast, but on the off chance that it was Evelyn, he could not let her go again.

“I see something!” he shouted, turning back to his companions. Before either had a chance to question him, Cullen was pushing forward through towering snow banks to reach the shadow in the distance.

When he got closer, his breath caught in his throat. Lady Trevelyan was kneeling in the snow, poorly dressed for the weather and shivering with cold and exhaustion. Her clothing was torn, her hair knotted and dirty, her body covered in dried blood, but there was no mistaking that it was her, and she was undoubtedly alive.

“It’s her!” he shouted, barely cognizant of his own voice as he reached to catch her swaying body. “Maker, it’s her,” he repeated to himself, softer, as he lifted her gently and held her close to share his warmth. He believed in the Maker, and he believed in fate but this was a damn miracle, and it took Cassandra’s firm grip on his shoulder to remind him it was all real, not just another dream of her coming back to him. She was alive, and in his arms, and,

“…going to die if we don’t get her back to camp soon, Cullen!”

The words drove him to action and he forced his legs to move towards the warmth and safety of camp.

...

After she was found in the snow, the Herald of Andraste slept for a whole day. For the first few hours, Madame Giselle and her healers would let nobody within thirty meters of the medical tent. Her condition was extremely fragile, and not even the War Council members were allowed to see her or hear of her current condition.

Hours of waiting later, Evelyn was deemed stable enough for visitors, but only her closest advisors. Cullen entered the tent with Liliana, Josephine, and Cassandra, all of whom were anxious to see how their Herald fared. Once assured of her safety, they all left to let her rest, at the request of Madame Giselle. Cullen, however, paused in the opening of the tent, chancing another glance back at the cot where Evelyn—his beloved—lay covered in blankets, looking barely alive. He turned on his heel quickly and strode out of the tent.

...

It was the middle of the night, and Cullen could not sleep. He had tried, after so many nights of denying himself rest, but the thought waking up to realize all this had just been a dream kept him straining against the pull of sleep. He lay there for hours, until he could no longer take the chaos in his mind and got up to walk around the camp and clear his head.

Soon after, Madame Giselle caught him kneeling beside the Inquisitor’s cot. She didn’t comment, just draped a blanket over him and continued caring for the other wounded. He watched Evelyn’s chest rise and fall softly, focusing on the steadiness of her beating heart to quell his rising panic, and soon found himself lulled into the soundest sleep he had had in a month.

...

After Evelyn had awoken and set them on a new path, Cullen had little time to think of the events after Haven. His time was consumed with leading the troops, drafting battle plans, and preparing Skyhold for the Inquisition’s presence. As such, he and Evelyn didn’t have a chance to talk about anything that had happened until a week into their arrival at Skyhold.

She found him in the crowded courtyard, and he caught a glimpse of her out of the corner of his eye standing patiently as he finished directing the scouts. As soon as he was done, she walked over slowly and paused before him. For several breaths she didn’t speak, and he had no idea what to say, where to even begin.

“How are you holding up, Cullen?”

The question shocked him, but he answered truthfully. “I’ve been better, Inquisitor. But there is much to do, and I am occupying myself with the work.”

She smiled a bit sadly, and shifted to tilt her head and look up at him. “You should relax more, you know. You work too hard.”

Cullen chucked nervously, blushing under her gaze. An awkward silence followed, and they both fidgeted with the tension of expectation and things left unsaid.

Finally, Evelyn managed to break the silence. “I’m relieved that you— that so many, made it out.” Her voice was soft, the least confident he had heard ever heard her sound. It was almost as if she was scared.

“As am I…” he managed to breathe out, too focused on her face to process any coherent thought.

There was so much he wanted to say. That he was afraid to lose her, that he never wanted to see her looking so pale and cold ever again. That the sight of her dropping to her knees in the snow made his heart-rate spike in fear, and it didn’t slow down until she was cradled in his arms.

He wanted to reach out to her, to that smooth skin that was so beautifully colored with the blush of warm, living blood rushing through her veins. She seemed unsettled by Haven as well, by the close call and the reminder that she, too, was mortal. Could it be that she felt anything close to what he felt for her, the tender affection that was growing within him every day? Could she sense in him the burning need to touch her and comfort her and see her face beside him every time he woke in the morning? He had been quiet for too long, he realized. She was turning her shoulder, smiling at him a bit nervously, and beginning to walk away.

_Say something, Cullen. Tell her! You almost missed your chance once before._

Later. He would tell her later, when the wound of almost losing her was no longer so raw. For now all he could do was promise he would never let her go again.


End file.
